Jared Leto’s Joker will have a new look in Zack Snyder’s Justice League

Suicide Squad
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Zack Snyder’s Justice League, aka the Snyder Cut, is fast approaching, and so far we’ve been treated to plenty of glimpses at the movie – including some behind the scenes sneak peeks, a full length trailer, and a look at Martian Manhunter.

Recently, additional photography brought back Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke and Jared Leto’s Joker, and now we know that we’ll be seeing a very different version of the Clown Prince of Crime to the one we saw in Suicide Squad. Speaking to Grace Randolph, director Zack Snyder teased what we can expect from his version of the character.

Referring to the additional photography, Snyder shared: “This scene was... a part of the world that I love and that I felt like needed to be just added to this movie and that… it’s really the only thing that I’ve added outside of the original photography.”

Snyder described the Joker as “road-weary” in the Snyder Cut, and teased that “water has gone under the proverbial bridge” from when we last saw him, which explains the makeover. Randolph also described the new style as “video game level good” and said, “when people see it in the context they’re going to go nuts.”

As for inviting back Leto, Snyder was very positive: “[Leto] was really gracious with entertaining my idea, and I told him that it was a thing that I had felt like, even when I was working on Justice League in London... I felt like was an inevitable course that the movie had to take.” He added that the scene is “a thing that I’d been kicking around in my head for quite a while” and Leto “warmed up to this idea that it was kind of an inevitable thing that kind of had to happen.”

It’s easy to guess that Leto’s Joker will sport a look closer to the character’s traditional look, especially as the Arkham video game series sees the villain in his classic purple suit – though Randolph clarified in a comment that the style "is not based on a video game but has the creativity of how video games reimagine characters." 

In terms of the new scene itself, we don’t know yet what to expect – although many are speculating it could be another “Knightmare” scene like the vision of a dystopian future glimpsed in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, especially as the Snyder Cut’s trailer shows a Joker playing card fly past during what looks like a similar scene.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League arrives as an HBO Max miniseries sometime in 2021, but until then check out our guide to watching DC movies in order to catch up with a movie marathon.

Molly Edwards
Senior Entertainment Writer

I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.